From Gesture to Prompt: A Genealogy of Creative Dispossession in the Era of Generative AI

Abstract

This article analyzes the transformation of creative practices through a
critical genealogy that distinguishes between historical forms of artistic
knowledge transmission and the current creative dispossession in the era
of generative AI. Contrary to continuist narratives that view generative
AI as a natural evolution of reproduction techniques, the analysis
identifies a qualitative rupture: while traditional practices of copying and
interpretation generated skills and formative relationships, generative
systems operate a stylistic extraction without reciprocity or human
learning. Drawing on Gehlen’s distinction between relief and replacement,
integrating Benjamin’s insights on technical reproducibility with
Nussbaum’s capabilities approach and a critique of the political economy
of the image, the study outlines three thresholds of transformation:
indexical registration (photography), controlled procedural delegation
(digital software), and stylistic extraction (generative AI). The latter
configures not a democratization but a concentration of creative power
in computational infrastructures. However, possibilities for critical
reappropriation emerge through ecological practices of augmented
intelligence that preserve the formative dimension of creation.